Baby Be
by Alison McGhee; illus. by Sean Qualls
Preschool    Dlouhy/Atheneum    40 pp.
10/23    9781534405394    $18.99
e-book ed.  9781534405400    $10.99

McGhee and Qualls present an exuberant celebration of dads and their babies. A recurring, multiracial cast of father-and-baby pairs enacts the fun, with McGhee’s rhythmic, rhyming text backgrounding the mood: “Give me that tie / and I’ll tie you a bow, // Give me your foot and I’ll give you a toe. // Your drumming, my strumming. // Your beats. / My treats.” In Qualls’s illustrations, a baby plays with some neckties before their father fashions one into a bow for his little one; another one balances on their pop’s feet while they dance together in the living room; yet another tot gleefully bashes pots and pans while their dad cobbles together a fruit cup. While there’s nothing in the text to suggest that the narrative voice is male, all the parent figures present as such, and one sports a T-shirt that reads “SUPER DAD.” Qualls’s trademark bubbles and swirls decorate the pages, the mixed-media application—acrylic paint, colored-pencil, and collage—lending the compositions an improvisational DIY look that suits these dads’ collective aspiration for their babies: “Wherever you are and whoever you’ll be / just know that you’re already perfect for me. // My baby, oh baby, oh baby, just…BE.” In a market where the mother-child bond is still more prominently featured than that between fathers and their children, this bouncy outing, while not exactly unique, feels fresh.

From the November/December 2023 issue of The Horn Book Magazine.